now I'm depressed

Blitzkrieger

Now that my old computer is up and runnning theres a problem with my new one

I think my 80G hard drive kicked the bucket I was hoping it would outlast this computer. I was planning on using this for about 4-5 years then making it a file server or something. I was even hoping to keep it after that It's like my puppy died

But I'm hoping all is not lost. The problem is that it sounds like every time I try to access it, it keeps going to sleep, then waking up, going to sleep, etc. I switched the power cable with the other HD and I'm pretty sure it's not the IDE cable cos the other HD is on that too. If I didn't need the data off it I'd probably just dig up the receipt and return it but I do. Anyone seen a problem like this before?

I was thinking that it might be a driver problem and that formatting might solve it, but again I don't want to lose the data.

SantaHoe

AFAIK there are data recovery agencies that'll grab all the data off your fux0red HD and burn it on to CDR's for you. (costs a bomb and I've only heard of one in London)

I'm not entirely sure what may be wrong with the drive, but I generally just pronounce them dead if they don't survive a fdisk/format.
Having said that, I did manage to recover data from a bandy drive with [dos] scandisk... [bad sectors and a b0rked FAT - the drive acted a lot like what you're describing]

I ph33l j00r p41n I r34lly d0.

Void

Blah swapspace.

Edited in case this point was completely obvious. This was probably the first thing you thought of.

Occums Razor etc.

[This message has been edited by Void (edited 17-02-2001).]

Hobbes

If it's a new machine it will have energy saving options in the BIOS.

You may be able to set them in Windows, but sometimes the BIOS overrides them. Check to see if you have the machine telling it to put the drives to sleep after a few minutes.

Blitzkrieger

I've got it set to never sleep in both the BIOS and windows. All my games are on it as well as my project stuff so I was using it pretty much all the time the computer was on. Guess it's bye-bye data and one whole month to re-do my entire project

Keeks

Is it the master or slave drive?

---

Homer: Bart, a woman is like a beer. They look good, they smell good, and you'd step over your own mother just to get one! (chugs beer)

SantaHoe

Well don't give up on it yet Blitz.
You could always try installing it on your other PC and running a few disc diagnostic tools on it... Norton Utils or something.

Keeks

And the moral of the story is - regular backups

Stephen

Blitz - Get the pcgamer DVD... costly, but it usually has all the half-life/UT patches and some of their mods. Or, if you're in Dublin, a number of the netcafes there do game patch CDs for about 3 quid (Does Not Compute in particular do this).

Blitzkrieger

I couldn't even get the thing to boot with the drive connected so I tried to boot from floppy and couldn't access the drive. I evenually managed to boot with the system CD and packed up my most important data to CD. I then tried to format the drive and somehow it destroyed the partition on the undamaged drive so I had to format that too. It was one of those 'ARRRGGGHHHH NNNOOOOOOO!!' moments. Sort of like when you spend two weeks looking for a spelling mistake that the compiler really should have picked up and feel like throwing the computer out the window.

I was supposed to be working on my project all day sunday but found myself with another naked PC. I have just about all my applications on CD so it's mostly up and running again after an exhasting day of install, reboot, install, reboot but theres some **** I'll have to download again. HL patches, UT patches, DOD, etc., so it'll still be a while before it'll be back to normal

I installed Hitman on the damaged drive to test it and it's defintly ****ed. I can't find the receipt so I think I'm out 300 squids

JayZuZ

IBM's website has a collection of recordings of various different types of HD failure so ya maybe able to tell whether its completely knackered or not from those. Can't remember the exact url of the page but you'll find it by searching their support.

Also there's a ****in great proggy, easyrecovery pro, that can undelete formatted partitions and recover stuff even with billixed MBR's and partition tables. Saved my bacon the other day. www.ontrack.com . bloody expensive at $489 but luckily i managed to find it for $489 less by shopping around


[This message has been edited by JayZuZ (edited 20-02-2001).]

Blitzkrieger

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Keeks:
And the moral of the story is - regular backups </font>

That was the drive I backed up to


I did manage to save most of the data but it still gets on my tits. It was working perfectly since mid november than suddenly stopped.


[This message has been edited by Blitzkrieger (edited 20-02-2001).]

Keeks

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Blitzkrieger:
That was the drive I backed up to

</font>

Thats not backing up. Thats just inviting disaster, like what happen to u. In future back up to zip, jaz for cd-r's. It will make life a little easier and less hassle. I found out the hard way too.

Blitzkrieger

seriouly though - what are the odds of both HDs failing at once? That's the reason I got two instead of just getting one 60G off Gateway. I'll prolly back up my most important data to CD out of paranoia though